


A Blessing of Frankincense and Myrrh

by DeanRH



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Dreams, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:13:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 10,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29081439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeanRH/pseuds/DeanRH
Summary: Dean tries to find meaning after Cas is gone.He comes up with a plan to find his angel.Trouble is -Castiel doesn't want to be found.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 108
Kudos: 61





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **MCD is the one we already know about from the show.

_He breathed, in and out, soft and worshipped.  
_

_He writhed on a bed, bathed in gold._

_Warm, welcoming, loving._

_Whispered words, in some other language, surrounded and filled him._

_**Anointed, anointed, frankincense and myrrh and the balm of Gilead, beloved** -_

_***_

Dean started awake, panting and hard, strange images of deserts and barren trees bright in his mind.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean poured the coffee grounds into the filter.

_One day._

_Fifteen days._

_A month, since -_

Some of the coffee spilled onto the floor. 

His hands never used to shake like this, not before -

_He's gone._

Every beat of his heart.

_He's gone._

Dean turned on the coffeepot and sat down heavily at the kitchen table.

He opened the newspaper and didn't see any of the words printed there.

_Cas, you son of a bitch._

_Why didn't you let me help you?_

***

Things with Sam were a little strained lately, too.

He seemed to be gearing up to get out of there.

Maybe forever.

Dean couldn't blame him.

He woke up sometimes in the dead black of night with terrors unspeakable shelved on his tongue that burned the back of his throat when he swallowed them down again.

The little weevils, the silverfish, and pill bugs that emerged from the cracks in the walls - the payment for a life lived underground - were the only other living things in the bunker.

Vast, and dark, and airless now.

Dean wondered if it had always been, but he just hadn't noticed before, his desire for hearth and home bleeding through him like a sickness.

Sam and Eileen wanted something else now, something just theirs, something for themselves.

Dean knew it was only a matter of time.

***

The nightmares had subsided.

Since the soft dream he'd had, the one he didn't let himself think about, because it confused and scared him more than even his nightmares.

Dean wondered, and not for the first time, if he shared the bunker with a ghost.


	3. Chapter 3

_I anoint thee with frankincense and myrrh._

_A blessing poured down for thee from heaven._

_Thou art beauty, thou art._

_I have seen mountains erode to dust, the great sandstorms sweeping the Sahara._

_I have seen the wide oceans, the strange depths, the creatures dwelling there._

_I have seen war and horror._

_I have seen joy, and hope._

_Of all these many things, wondrous and terrible and rare,_

_I, you._

_I, you._

_The words of my heart, the shape of my soul if I had one to give -_

_all for you, beloved -_

_the one thing in all of history I have desired for myself._

_From the birth of the first stars until the fateful day when I laid my hand on you in Hell._

_All I have desired is to call you one perfect, precious word:_

**_Mine._ **

_The creature hovered there above Dean, watching him with its strange, alien eyes._

***

Dean woke without realizing, at first, that he was muttering, over and over again:

"Yours, yours," he repeated, until the words made sense, and then did not make sense to him at all.

Startled, he stood and went to the mirror in his room as he flicked on the light.

A much older man stared back at him than he ever expected, no matter how many times he looked at his reflection.

_Nobody ages above 25 in their heart,_ he'd read somewhere.

He blinked at himself, thought of the dream that was scattering now in the light of wakefulness, and said:

"What the hell?"


	4. Chapter 4

_Dean's mouth was open._

_He could feel his breath, the dew of it on his lips._

_He stared down at sad-eyed, sleepy-eyed, beloved Castiel beneath him, in awe and worship._

_That he could have this, that they could have this._

_Stunned silent, he pushed inside._

_Reverent, perfect, blessed union._

_Like Dean had never done this before. every single time._

_He got up, tired and sated, whispered a promise of pancakes into Castiel's hair._

_Dean stood at the stove, smiling to himself, humming._

_He stacked the pancakes high on two plates and reached for the syrup._

_It poured out black._

_He briefly wondered if Cas had picked up some kind of weird new syrup at that farmer's market he liked to visit on the weekends -_

_until the black got onto his hands, and he tried to wipe it off on his shirt, but everything was sticky and suddenly the kitchen counters flowed with it and Dean tried to catch it but he couldn't stop it, he couldn't do anything -_

_He couldn't stop it._

Dean woke on a gasp.

He blinked into the darkness for a moment as the dream began to fade.

- _the one thing I want I know I can't have-_

Dean's fist clenched reflexively.

_Why didn't you stop it?_

Dean got out of bed, and out of the bunker.

He was suffocating in there.

***

The stars were cold in the Kansas sky.

The snow crunched underfoot as Dean stood alone beneath its vastness.

Dean was in utter disbelief at the how it had felt, to be with Castiel in that way. Awe. Worship. hat it could feel so earth-shattering. So...profound.

"I miss you," he told the night sky fiercely. "God, I miss you."


	5. Chapter 5

_I'm a failure._

_I'm a damned failure._

_I couldn't - I didn't - you can't just **hit** me with that shit, man -_

_I -_

_I -_

_**Dean.** _

Dean woke up.

He got out of bed.

Drank coffee.

Took a shower.

Walked Miracle.

Just like every day.

And every day was supposed to get easier, wasn't it?

He'd lost so many, after all.

Sam, countless times.

His dad, his mom.

Friends. Lovers. Enemies that weren't enemies so much, afterwards - 

like Crowley,

like Rowena.

But that was the thing of it -

death, for Dean, wasn't a forever situation.

This time, though -

the finality of it, the cold stone tomb of it,

he couldn't get past this loss.

The routine days bled into each other, one after another.

He knew that he'd have to get his head back into the game, they couldn't afford distractions.

But his heart just wasn't in it anymore.

***

_Black,_

_black like neverending,_

_black like the absence of something,_

_the absence of everything,_

_and somehow,_

_beyond reason or hope,_

_a hand reached out into the light._

***

"I've been having weird dreams."

Sam looked up from the newspaper.

"Like that time you dreamed the world was a banana and you ate it?"

Dean stared at his brother.

"You remember that?"

"How could I forget?"

"And no," said Dean. "Not weird like that. Good weird."

"I don't want to talk about your wet dreams, Dean."

"God, will you shut the hell up? What are you, me?" grumbled Dean. "I'm tryin' to have a conversation with you here."

"Okay, okay, sorry," said Sam. "Dreams like what?"

"Uh," said Dean, now that he was here, somewhat uncertain of where to head, "Dreams. About Cas."

Sam crinkled up and softened around the edges like a happy baked potato.

"Oh," he said. Then, very carefully, "What kind of dreams?"

"Uh," said Dean, and realized that this kind of prevarication was probably prompting the exact kind of assumptions he had hoped to avoid. "Domestic ones? Just dreams of a nice life, okay?"

Sam laid his paper down on the table and templed his hands together.

"Dean," he said. "What _exactly_ happened that night?"

"Aw, don't get all lawyer on me," said Dean.

"It's important."

"Fine," Dean said. "He said, uh. A bunch of nice stuff about me for some reason. And then -"

Dean was startled to find himself swallowing against tears.

"Dean?" asked Sam, alarmed now. He'd clearly only wanted to rib his brother a little bit and obviously hadn't expected this turn of events.

"He said he loved me, Sammy," said Dean with grief in his voice. 

Miracle trotted into the kitchen and put her chin in Dean's lap, whining a little. She knew something was wrong. He patted her absentmindedly and stared down into her eyes, just to have something to look at that wasn't Sam.

"Well, of course he did, Dean," said Sam. "I loved him too, we all did."

"I think," said Dean, to Miracle, so softly Sam wouldn't have heard it if he hadn't been listening so intently, "I think he meant he was _in love with me,_ Sam. Hearts and flowers, til-death-do-us-part - "

Here, he choked up.

" - y'know," he continued, once he'd gotten his shit together again a little, "uh, the _romance_ kinda love."

Sam's resounding silence was deafening.

Dean finally dared to look up at him.

"Well, yeah, Dean," he said.

Dean gaped at him.

" _Well, yeah, Dean_?" repeated Dean, mimicking Sam's voice. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

Sam spread his gigantic limbs so wide Dean thought he might be in danger of taking off into the stratosphere.

"I thought you knew," he said.

Dean's entire universe was completely spun on its axis.

"Oh my God," Sam said, as if he'd received revelation. " _You_ don't even know, do you?"

"I don't even know what?" demanded Dean.

Sam gave him this look, a look that Dean knew well and had long hated, because it was his I Know Something You Don't Know look, which simultaneously made him love his brother and also want to kick him very hard under the table.

"Ow!" Sam yelled. "What was that for?"

"Whatever you're thinking," Dean said, sticking his finger in Sam's face. "Knock it off."

Sam smirked and folded his arms.

"Ain't gonna make it any less true," he said.

"Holy shit, you _are_ me," said Dean. "Hey, Sam, I called, I want my me back."

Sam gave him a puzzled look.

"That doesn't even make sense."

Dean had several less-than-mature options open to him at this point, but he decided that all of them would have to wait.

"Never mind," Dean said. "What I wanna know is: what are we gonna do about it?"

"About what?"

" _Cas,_ Einstein!" said Dean. "He's in the Empty. You wanna leave him there?"

"Of course not."

"Then let's get crackin' on the research. We're gonna bring him home."


	6. Chapter 6

Grit and determination, however, could only get them so far.

They'd hit a brick wall months ago.

Still, it got Dean's head back in the game, where it needed to be.

The dreams had gotten more and more intense, more real, until Dean wasn't sure whether reality was the sleeping or waking world. 

They had become as real as a djinn dream, but they were just normal dreams, as far as Dean knew.

_Cas, standing sleepy in the kitchen, raising a corner of his t-shirt to scratch his stomach and showing off the delicious curve of his hipbone._

_Cas, kissing the back of his neck while they spooned in bed, early in the morning._

_Cas, dominating the shit out of him, making him obey and moan and weep and beg._

_Cas, tending to houseplants, in a room filled with amber light._

And other, stranger things, like:

_An ocean of light, making love to him, drowning him but never drowned._

_A creature beyond human ken just staring at him, a stare that felt like an intimate caress._

_The desert, the barren trees, the scent of frankincense and myrrh._

Dean would wake up, yearning, aching, yes in the sexual sense but more in the absolute need for Castiel to return to him. 

For a life, with a love like that.

Sam seemed to be going through the motions himself.

Dean wondered if he had some ulterior motive now, and all he could come up with was one word:

Eileen.

This was a little strange to him, because they'd broken up a while back. Chuck's machinations had made her feel like she couldn't trust whether she was actually interested in Sam or had been driven to it instead.

Eileen was like Dean. She was dedicated to the life, to life on the road. So she'd told Sam goodbye.

Dean had expected more moping, if he was being honest. He'd expected...the usual, from his baby brother. 

Maybe Eileen had been right about the whole manipulation thing.

But still, it had opened some kind of rift.

Not between himself and Sam, God knows they'd done that enough.

Between Sam and the hunting life. 

That age-old, distant stare Dean remembered from those early days when he'd nabbed Sam at Stanford and dragged him right back into the craziness, because Dean couldn't go it alone. Couldn't let go.

Well, everyone besides Peter Pan grows up someday.

"You know," Sam commented one day at an IHOP while Dean was attempting to use every available syrup on his stack of strawberry whipped cream pancakes, "I haven't seen you even _try_ to get into anyone's pants in a long time."

Dean's hand shook a little as he poured the syrup.

"Yeah, I mean," said Dean, "waitresses in truck stops, that gets old, y'know?"

"And who knows how many of them you've knocked up along the way," Sam supplied.

Dean dropped the bottle onto the pancakes.

"Shit," he said. "Shit! Uh, you don't think - ?"

"No, _you_ don't think," said Sam, gleeful. "So busy playing road-James-Bond you forgot that sex has consequences?"

"Kinda got put off it when I had a daughter and you had to off her," said Dean glumly.

Sam's smile faded.

"Oh, yeah, right," he said. "Still, I mean - have you been checked out? There's a _lot_ of other - "

"Yes, damn it, Sam," said Dean. "And besides, Cas -"

He was _not_ going to explain that Cas had...healed him of a few things, which Cas had informed him of in a detached, clinical fashion that made him unable to do much of anything for a while.

" - said, uh, that I could pick it up, but couldn't pass it on," said Dean. "Perks of being the Michael Sword, I guess."

"Good, because condoms aren't a hundred percent effective - "

"Is there a reason we're having this utterly fucking bizarre conversation?"

Sam sighed, watching Dean clean the syrup and whipped cream off the syrup bottle.

"Nothing," he said, and stared out the window.

Dean heard him, although he didn't say anything else:

_I want out._

_I want kids._

_I want more than this life, Dean._

And Dean was ready.

He hatched a plan.

He never could say no to the kid.

***

His plan was partly selfish, he knew.

He also knew it wasn't guaranteed to work.

But it was all he had going for him, and they weren't going to find Castiel any faster.

He set a job application on his desk, courtesy of Jody Mills, to be a police officer in Minnesota. He left it half-filled out, so that Sam wouldn't guess what he was up to.

Dean kissed Miracle on the nose, as they headed out for a vampire hunt.

"Bye, Miracle," said Dean. "You've been such a good girl. You be good for Sammy, now. He always wanted a dog."

Dean followed his brother up the stairs and out of the bunker, listening to their boots echo on the stairs one last time.

***

Dean saw the rebar long before he'd decided to use it.

_What the fuck is that doing there,_ was his first thought. _That doesn't belong there at all, it's for reinforcing concrete._

Almost as if someone or something had rumbled his plan and put it there on purpose.

But Chuck was diminished now, human. So it couldn't be that.

And as much as he feared the pain of it, Dean knew that this kind of mundane injury was his best chance. Getting killed by a vampire was a bad idea, he'd already almost been one before and that wasn't going to ultimately accomplish his goal.

Becoming undead was not going to be useful to him whatsoever.

So he maneuvered himself in place and charged one of them.

It was a fucking idiot move, not even a rookie one. Just a really fucking stupid thing to do.

Something that Dean would _never_ do, not under normal circumstances.

But when the vampire rushed him and he felt the searing pain of the rebar in his back, he shouted in agony.

Sam hadn't noticed yet.

And when he did, he tried to do the right thing.

Dean stopped him, rambling on about how much he loved Sam, saying there wasn't time.

Of course there was fucking time, there had been plenty of people impaled on rebar that survived a much worse injury than this one, but Dean needed the time to bleed out.

_And_ to make it look convincing.

Just a stupid accident.

"Don't bring me back," the cherry on top, and because he knew Sam hadn't done it before, he could trust him not to do it now.

_Go live your damned life, away from all this crap,_ thought Dean, as he faded. _You can do it, now that I'll be gone._

"I love you," he finally got out of his mouth, after all these years.

And then, the lights went out.

***

Dean came to in Heaven.

He went through the motions with Bobby, who mentioned Cas, but Dean knew better, because he had been dreaming.

He'd never trusted this weird fake paradise anyway. He wasn't even sure that was really Bobby.

So Dean got into the Impala, and drove off.

"Okay," he said to himself. "Good. Starting here. I was expecting to see Rowena, but I can work with this too."

Dean grinned.

"Time to find Mr. Business in the Front, Party in the Back," he said, and headed off down the road.


	7. Chapter 7

The pie festival had been a condemned man's last meal.

He thought Sam might've figured it out then, his blasé positivity, his weird focus on the pie.

But somehow, this time, Sam had been none the wiser.

_Man, this drive is long -_

"Holy shit!" 

Dean slammed on the brakes and the Impala fishtailed, kicking up a cloud of dust in the gravel road, trying to avoid running Ash over, who had appeared suddenly in the middle of the road, standing there with his arms crossed and a knowing look on his face.

Dean threw the car door open.

Ash snorted.

"Heard you were lookin' for me," he growled.

"What the hell are you doin', I coulda killed ya!" Dean shouted.

Ash looked at the Impala, and then at Dean.

"Not really," he said, and -

_Right._

_Heaven._

_Everybody's dead._

"Good to see you again, my man," said Ash, grabbing his hand and shaking it, then using it to pull Dean into a strong hug. 

"Good to see you too, Ash," said Dean, and was mildly surprised to find that he really meant it.

"What can I do ya for, Dean Winchester?" asked Ash, leaning against the Impala's grille.

Dean just looked at him for a minute.

"Damn," he said. "You sure are a sight for sore eyes."

"Could say the same to you," said Ash. "But then, I see you and your brother all the time. You think this one's gonna stick?"

"This death?" Dean shrugged. "Hard to say. I kinda hoodwinked Sam. He's gonna live his own life now, be happy."

"You sure about that?" asked Ash.

"Huh, I almost forgot," said Dean. "You're fuckin' perceptive."

"That's what the ladies like," said Ash, flexing his arm and kissing his bicep. "Anyway. I take it that you tricked Sam for good reason?"

"Yeah," said Dean. "I kinda...lost somethin', an' I really need to find it."

"And you died on purpose? And didn't tell Sam?"

"Hell no. He'd just try to bring me back."

"And you died in front of him, like usual?"

Now Dean was starting to feel guilty.

"Uh," he said. "Yeah."

"Whoa," said Ash. " _Harsh._ "

"Maybe," Dean allowed.

"So I take it that whatever you lost up here is somethin' that matters a lot," said Ash, regarding him with a new sort of respect. "I take it you know there's a new sherriff in town up here?"

"Yeah," said Dean. "He was our son. Kinda."

Ash blinked.

"You and Sam had a son?" he said. "Not sure I wanna touch whatever that is, Dean."

"No," said Dean. "I mean me an' - an' -"

" _Oh_ ," said Ash. "And they died, right? So you're up here lookin' to get em back."

"That's the idea, yeah. Can you help me?"

Ash examined the sky for a while.

"Got a question for ya," he said. "If you were lookin' for me, why didn't you try the Roadhouse? You were right there."

Dean was a little taken aback.

"Honestly?" he said. "I don't know. You're right, I shoulda started there first."

"No, you were right to do it the way you did it," said Ash. "Less chance of being caught this way."

"But I thought, if Jack is in charge of -"

Ash gave him a very strange look.

"Dean," he said. "You must know, somewhere, that the story they tell you ain't always the truth. We're still in danger here, you get me? Now, I dunno about this whole - this guy bein' your kid, or whatever. But there are promises, and stories, and lies."

Dean thought back to how Cas had gotten himself killed because of promises Jack had made him in the womb. A perfect paradise that had never come to pass. 

_Shit. Had they been manipulated **this entire time?**_

Ash nodded to him.

"I see your instincts for self-preservation haven't faded much," he said. "So you got any intel on this love of yours? Maybe I can help."

"He's not - " Dean started, but there was something in his mind that said _you sure you wanna finish that sentence, Winchester?_

"He?" asked Ash, surprised.

Then he raised his hands in a rock salute.

"Say no more!" he said. "I may not be one o' you but I _am_ an Ally!"

He showed Dean a rainbow button that said ALLY, pinned to the denim vest he was wearing.

"Ash, uh -"

But Ash's eyes were sparkling now.

"Wait til I tell Mom an' Jo," he said, brimming with enthusiasm.

"Ellen and Jo are here?" asked Dean, and found himself choking up a little.

"Yeah," said Ash. "An' they'd love to see you, but first, let's get you your man."

"Uh," said Dean. "Angel, actually."

Ash stared at him, then looked at his ALLY button.

"Okay!" he said, clapping his hands. "We got space for ALL kinds of love around here."

Dean resisted rolling his eyes, but he couldn't help smiling.

"Angels are a tough one," said Ash. "I've been listening to angel radio for a long time, as you know. This angel, uh, how'd you leave things? Before he died?"

"He told me he loved me and then the Empty came for him."

Ash's eyes widened.

" _That_ angel?" he said. "Oh, boy. You got your work cut out for you, Winchester. You sure don't do things by halves."

"What do you mean?"

"I think this must be the angel the, uh, _new sheriff,_ brought back," said Ash. "They usually appear to us as people, but they aren't. They're beings of refracted light, celestial intent, and memory. This one was very sad, and pulled himself apart, all across the entirety of Heaven."

"Why'd he do that?" asked Dean. "He said he was happy, just telling me -"

"That may be so, in the moment," said Ash. "But you know angels, they love to luxuriate in their grief."

"Okay," Dean said. "So I gotta - collect pieces of Castiel and put him back together again?"

Ash gave him finger guns.

"Exactly," he said. 

"But you said he's a _being of refracted light, celestial intent, and memory_ ," said Dean.

"Yeah. Angels don't got souls so they're made of different stuff."

"Right," said Dean. "Okay. How do I find these pieces?"

"You know how they said the Empty was reliving painful memories?" asked Ash. "Part of the reason for that is that an angel is made up of all the things he has ever seen, good and bad. Heaven is made up of peoples' greatest hits, or at least it was, until things changed a little - and maybe not entirely for the better."

"So what? I gotta...go find Cas's memories?" asked Dean. "How do I do that? How do I know it's him? Where do I go?"

Ash shrugged.

"I got no answers to that, Dean," he said. "This is about as far as I can take you. The rest, you gotta do on your own."

"Great," Dean muttered. "Well, I better get a move on then. Thanks, Ash."

"Anytime, brother," said Ash, and hauled Dean into an embrace again. "And when you put him back together again, you come and find us. I think there's something weird goin' on here and we sure could use an angel on our side."

"Will do," said Dean, and he got into the Impala again.

He started her up, and drove off, Ash waving to him in the rearview.

_Cas._

_Cas, I hope you can hear me._

_I'm gonna find you, an' put you back together again._

_Just like you put me back together, once upon a time._


	8. Chapter 8

_Cas._

_You stupid, self-sacrificing son of a bitch._

_How'm I gonna find you here?_

Suddenly, Dean's eyes were seared by a bright, intense light -

and when his eyesight returned, he found that he was sitting -

on top of a camel.

"What the fuck?" he spat, as it swayed beneath him.

"Everything all right, friend?" said a warm, gravel voice beside him.

Dean found himself wrapped from head to toe in clothing, and when he turned to see who had addressed him, found the brightest blue eyes he had ever seen peering out at him from behind a similar wrap.

"Cas?" asked Dean. "Why're we in this _Lawrence of Arabia_ lookin shit?"

The other man started in surprise.

"You - know my name," he said. "Who are you, stranger?"

"Dean," said Dean.

The blue eyes registered no recognition.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I know of no man by that title."

"C'mon Cas, we're not doin' this again," said Dean. "Already dealt with your whole memory loss thing before, I'm here to take you home."

"I have work to do," said Cas kindly. "I cannot accompany you to your home, friend. But I thank you for the invitation."

Dean was not accustomed to being treated lightly by Castiel, or ignored. He just gaped at him and followed along, his camel giving him a dubious look, which Dean returned in a mature fashion that absolutely did not involve him pulling a face at it from behind the cloth he wore.

***

Dean reluctantly followed Cas into a village.

He did not have to wonder long about what they were doing there.

"Cas, what -" Dean said, until he realized the unearthly stillness could only mean one thing.

Cas didn't look at him.

"I couldn't go through with it," he admitted. "The smiting, I - "

Now he cast his gaze toward the ground.

There was a soft wail, and they both looked to see a little boy, no older than two, staring up with huge, frightened eyes.

Cas dismounted from his camel.

"Cas, don't you fucking dare -" was right on the tip of Dean's tongue, when Cas picked up the boy and wrapped him in cloth protectively.

He mounted his camel again with the boy in his arms.

"I will take him to the next village," he said. "Someone will care for him there, I - I am supposed to finish the job, but I can't."

"Good," said Dean, and meant it. "Those bastards don't know shit, Cas, you gotta know that."

Those baby blues regarded him with new emotion.

"I am an angel," Castiel said. "And not a very good one."

"Castiel," said Dean. "You're the best of them."

Cas looked at him as if seeing him for the first time.

Dean unwrapped the cloth around his face.

"Look at me, Cas," said Dean. "Please. Remember me."

Castiel studied his face, still holding the boy in his arms.

Then, there was the subtlest shift, and -

"Dean?"

Suddenly, Cas, the boy, and the camel shimmered and collapsed into a point of light.

***

Dean was seated in the driver's seat of the Impala again, a bright shard of light beside him on the passenger seat.

All evidence of deserts and camels were gone. Now it was just the highway through the pine forest again.

And he remembered what Cas had said, all that time ago, when he'd come here the first time -

_yours is two-lane asphalt -_

his road through Heaven.

_It's all about intent, isn't it?_

"Great," Dean commented aloud. "How'm I supposed to put Humpty Dumpty back together again? I collect pieces of light and put them...where, exactly?"

_You're a vessel, Dean._

_One of the strongest that has ever been made for an angel._

_And where better to store the pieces of your angel -_

Dean picked up the shard.

He placed it over his chest, where he knew his soul to be.

And gasped, as it welcomed him, like a home after a hard rain.

Dean sighed, and threw the Impala in gear.

"Cas, you son of a bitch," he announced. "I'm gonna bring you home."


	9. Chapter 9

Suddenly, the world shifted again.

Dean found himself standing in a club, surrounded by people, the darkness filled with bright music.

He recognized it immediately as some kind of old-timey cabaret.

Now that he knew what he was looking for, he scanned the crowd until he found those bright blue eyes.

_Paul Newman. Steve McQueen. Frank Sinatra. And Castiel._

Dean grinned at the thought, and then pressed forward into the crowd, making his way toward those baby blues.

"Cas," he said. "Castiel!"

A handsome face, different but not so different from the Cas he knew, gave him a startled look.

"How -"

"Did I know your name?" Dean finished. "We're old friends. Look, Cas, we gotta get outta here -"

He grabbed Castiel's arm. 

"I'm not supposed to be here," Castiel hissed.

"Then what the hell are you doing here?"

"Saving them."

Dean turned to look at the crowd. Then back at Cas.

"In twenty minutes, this place will be shelled with artillery," said Cas. "Everyone here will die."

"You can't save everyone, Cas, you told me that."

"Maybe not, but I can save a few."

"Cas, you gotta - _look at me, Castiel. Please._ "

Cas studied him for a moment.

His jaw dropped and his eyes widened.

"Dean?" he said, just as they opened fire.

***

Sitting in the Impala with another shard of Castiel beside him, Dean lifted it and pressed it to his chest.

"Haven't walked among us in thousands of years, my ass," said Dean. "You just couldn't help it. Not even then."

He laid a hand over his heart and soul, where the two pieces of Castiel rested snugly, as if warmed by the fire of him.

"Not even then."


	10. Chapter 10

Dean was startled to find himself...

standing in a house.

Just a regular, everyday house, clearly during his own time period.

Baffled, he turned around himself a few times, trying to figure out what was going on here.

"Hey babe, will you pick up bacon on the way into town?"

That was _his_ voice. 

He'd recognize it anywhere, because he hated hearing recordings of it.

"Yes, Dean," rumbled another voice, and -

_Cas_ walked into the kitchen and suddenly kissed Dean right on the mouth.

"Be back in a half hour," Cas said, and he was warm and sleepy-looking, smelled of clothes just out of the dryer, tan and soft like he'd been napping on the couch in the sunlight.

Dean's heart _shattered._

"Cas," he said, and Cas took a step back.

"This," Cas said, and cleared his throat. "This can't be right. You're not - you're."

Dean somehow reached past all the horrible yearning of it all and said:

"Cas, what is this, a djinn dream? I thought these were your memories."

Castiel blinked slowly at him, like a cat.

Then he looked down at the floor, ashamed.

"And dearest, most cherished hopes," said Castiel. "Angels dream strange. Almost like - a manifestation."

"And this - this is what you dream about?" asked Dean. "Living in some crappy old house that's not even a mansion, Cas, the place looks like it hasn't been done up since the seventies. _This_ is your dream house?"

"It has you in it," said Castiel. "This is _your_ dream house, because this is as big as you've ever dreamed."

Dean looked around himself again, and yeah, this was exactly the type of house he'd imagined himself living in if his life ever got onto the straight and narrow.

"And you'd rather live here with me in my small dreams than out there in yours?" asked Dean.

"It's all I've ever dreamed since I met you, Dean. Well. Since - "

_I fell in love,_ he didn't have to say.

Dean swallowed.

_You changed me, Dean -_

echoed and rattled around inside Dean's head.

"You're an angel," Dean said stupidly. "You can have...anything you want, go anywhere you want, live on Saturn, who the hell knows, and you wanna live with me in some rundown crap Craftsman house in the fucking Midwest?"

"I can't have anything I want," said Castiel. "In all my history, I've only ever _wanted_ one thing."

Castiel then just stared at him in silence.

It was Dean's turn to blink.

"Well I got some words to say to you," said Dean. "And I'm not gonna say 'em to you in pieces, so - sorry, Cas, but you gotta snap outta this and you gotta do it now."

Castiel smiled, soft and fond.

"Anything you say, Dean," he rumbled. "Anything."

***

Dean found himself in the driver's seat of the Impala once again, this time cradling the shard of Castiel in his hands.

"Damn, Cas," Dean whispered. "Every time I think you can't surprise me again, you go and do something like that. Fuck."

And he pressed this shard of Castiel gently against his chest, ignoring the tears streaming freely down his cheeks, and his own twice-broken, duct-taped-together heart.


	11. Chapter 11

Dean could feel the ghost of that kiss on his lips as he waited for the world to change around him again.

Which it did, a brief moment later, but in the strangest way so far.

He was surrounded by multiple different scenes, like all the different facets of a gemstone or the eye of a fly, all Cas -

all unhappy.

"No," whispered Dean.

These were all events he personally remembered. 

None of them from the long-ago past.

There was his betrayal, there was the time Dean had kicked him out, which he clearly believed was his own fault, there were so many things here tied up with his history with Dean.

And Dean, at last, chose the nuclear option.

"You listen here," Dean shouted. "This message is for the angel Castiel. You got your ears on? Good."

All the Castiels around him were still talking in a hushed murmur, repeating those memories again and again and again.

"It's Dean," Dean shouted. "And I need you here. Stop runnin' from me, _Castiel._ "

The various different angels around him fell silent, and the facets fell in on each other.

***

Suddenly, Dean was lying on a bed, _writhing_ in an almost-painful level of pleasure.

He gasped with the sudden change, not that it would have been obvious given the circumstances.

He was drenched in something warm and wet that felt and smelled like honey, and a creature stared down at him like several owls coming to a point at a single beak inches from his body.

The many eyes blinked sleepily, watching him.

Above him, a voice:

_Anointed, anointed_

as Dean tried and failed to stave off orgasm and his back arched as he cried out, coming all over his stomach.

Weeping and weak, he reached out, placing his palm against the beaklike thing in front of him.

"Cas?" he said softly.

The creature looked at him fondly, and then froze.

It reared back in something like horror, and from far off, Dean heard a horrifed:

"Dean?!"

Dean smiled up at the creature.

"Well, yeah, buddy," said Dean -

and in a blink, all was dark.

***

Dean floated there in the nothing -

well not _nothing,_ Dean had the distinct sense of _deep, horrified, abiding embarrassment._

After a while -

it could've been a few minutes, or a few years -

Dean called out again.

"C'mon, Cas," he pleaded. "I came all this way, and I brought some of you with me. Now are we gonna talk, or what?"

Moments passed, and he thought maybe Cas was so humiliated that he was going to stay away and wait at least a century until the embarrassment passed.

But then, Dean's chest lit up blue, and he shouted -

as the light inside him sought light outside him, and he fell back on his ass on a gravel road next to the Impala, watching the impossible light fold down and down, into a familiar figure standing in the sunlight, the breeze slightly rippling the beloved tan trenchcoat.

He turned, and those beautiful blue eyes met his again.

"Hello, Dean."


	12. Chapter 12

Cas was facing him, but looking everywhere else. His eyes skidded up towards the sky, around at the trees, anywhere but Dean.

He was also fire-engine-red in the face.

"Cas," said Dean, in what he hoped was a soothing tone but clearly had an irritable edge. "Will you fuckin' look at me?"

Cas clearly refused.

"What can I do for you, Dean?" he asked, airily, as if Dean hadn't just walked in on the equivalent of an angelic wet dream.

"Okay, look, I'm gonna level with you," Dean said. "That was... _deeply_ weird, but - am I talking to you now? _All_ of you? I don't gotta go collect more pieces of the angel Castiel?"

Blushing even harder, if that were possible, Cas gave a sharp nod.

"Yes," he confirmed. "This is - this is me. All of me."

"Good, 'cause I got somethin' to say to you -"

Suddenly, Cas lifted his head and pinned him with his gaze.

_Now that's more like it -_

"Dean, _why_ are you _here_?" Cas demanded on a growl, which, wow, Dean's libido reacted to before his brain.

"I - uh," said Dean, realizing that the explanation was probably about to tip him right into hot water again.

"Dean," said Cas warningly.

"I, may have," Dean began. "I had to come looking for you."

"You got yourself killed, you mean," said Cas in disbelief. "You - after everything I did! And what about Sam?"

"Sam's fine," said Dean, stubborn. "Gets to live his apple pie life. Happy. Y'know."

"Dean Winchester," said Cas, and it sounded like a swearword. 

He closed his eyes, rapidly losing the bright-red color to the _not this again_ exasperation he clearly knew all too well.

"If you think that's what constitutes Sam's happiness," he started, and then seemed to careen down another path, "And I _just_ \- _ugh,_ you are _unbelievable!_ "

"Seems like you sure thought so a few minutes ago," Dean commented, because he was kind of an asshole and just couldn't resist.

"That's!" Cas shook a finger in Dean's face, and then drew his hand over his own face with a long-suffering sigh. "You weren't supposed to - to -"

"See that?" asked Dean. "And now that I have?"

They stared at each other in tense, familiar silence.

"You said you had something to tell me?" asked Cas, in a defeated voice. "Well, tell me, so I can resurrect your dumb ass."

Dean's jaw dropped.

"You little fucker," he said, "I came all this way so I could -"

"So you could what?" Castiel grumped at him. "Idiot dying on rebar. Some hunter you are."

"That's it," said Dean. "You know what? Words are gonna be useless here. So - "

Cas glared at him, arms folded.

And Dean had the utter joy of watching Castiel's expression change, and change again, blue eyes blown wide open, as Dean Winchester bore down on him and Cas dropped his arms, startled and confused, and seemed to suddenly understand what was about to happen just as Dean crashed into him with all the subtlety of the trainwreck that, let's face it, he was, and kissed the angel breathless and stupid.


	13. Chapter 13

Dean drew back a little, finally, after he'd made sure and made sure again of what Castiel's lips felt like against his own.

_It's not enough. Not here. Here is not-real._

_God, what I'd give to touch you back on Earth._

_Where it's soil and it's sun and it's long summer days winter nights **real.**_

"You," Cas said, starry-eyed.

"Me," Dean agreed.

"I didn't think - " Cas started haltingly. "I never thought - "

"Well you got that right, at least," laughed Dean, and kissed Cas again just because he could.

"Dean," sighed Castiel against his mouth.

"Yeah, Cas," murmured Dean. "You can have this, you can have me, you can have everything."

And Cas teared up, and smiled.

"I thought you said that was _deeply weird_ ," Cas told him.

Dean shrugged.

"Didn't say I didn't like it," he said, and they laughed together again, clung together at the lapels like a lifeline.

"But," he continued, and Cas muttered something in Enochian with a long-suffering sigh.

"I knew there would be something else," said Cas.

"Hey, don't get like that," said Dean. "It's nothing to do with us, this time. This? Cas, this is the realest thing I've ever felt. Okay? You got me locked down, ever since you stormed into that barn in a shower of sparks and pinned me with those baby blues."

"Poetry, from Dean Winchester?" teased Cas.

"Oh, babe, I'm just gettin' started," said Dean. "You don't think I got all the chicks just on the basis of this pretty mug, do ya? You're gonna get wined and dined and romanced within an inch of your eternal life. Got it?"

Castiel's smile was brilliant.

"Got it," he said, and the world around them bloomed green, flowers opening, leaves brightening up.

"Are you doing that?" asked Dean.

"Jack gave me my powers back, and more," said Castiel.

"And you've been using them to hide out here and sulk," said Dean.

"Dean."

"Okay, okay," said Dean, trying to stow the giddy butterflies and stupid-in-love feelings for the time being. "Look, Cas. You - Chuck said that you're the only creature with real free will."

"Because I fell in love with you. Yes."

Dean blinked, because that was - yeah.

"Wow," he said, shaking his head. "I don't deserve -"

Castiel leveled him with a glare that Dean knew in his bones had once smote cities.

"Moving on," said Dean. "I saw Ash, he told me how to find you. And he seems to think there's something _off,_ up here."

"Off how?" asked Cas, finally letting go of Dean, all business again.

"I don't know," Dean admitted. "But something's wrong."

"And I've been wasting my time _sulking,_ as you put it," said Cas angrily. 

"You're powerful enough to change things, I think," said Dean. "You may be the only one who can."

Castiel narrowed his eyes.

"Is that why you came here?" he asked flatly. 

"What? No, Cas, I fuckin' _mean it_ ," said Dean. "Jeez, are we ever gonna catch a break? I only found out about the problem after I got here. I came here to find you, no ulterior motive, one hundred percent."

Cas visibly relaxed.

"Then let's go fix heaven."

"Again."


	14. Chapter 14

"Cas, what you did -" Dean started, now that he was back in the familiar surroundings of the Impala, "God. That - that was always my worst fear, y'know? _The very touch of you corrupts._ _Everybody leaves you, Dean, haven't you noticed?_ Losing people. Losing you."

"I'm sorry, Dean," said Castiel.

"Anyway, I got your, uh, messages," said Dean. "In my dreams, I saw - those things. Kinda like you were praying to me, and I - I noticed, Cas, damn."

If Castiel could look even more mortified than before, he was certainly doing a good job of it now.

"You saw that," he said in a dead voice. 

"Buddy, you were broadcasting loud and clear," said Dean. "An' besides. I missed you."

"Oh, Dean," said Cas, soft and fond and Dean was .3 seconds away from pulling over to the side of the road for some makeout action just from the promise of his voice, when something else important suddenly occurred to him.

"Weren't you in the Empty?" he asked. 

"I was," said Cas.

"And?"

"I got out."

"Jack pull you?"

"No, I," Castiel sighed and looked out the window at the fake forest whipping past them. "It turns out that my longing is, _intense_ , for want of a better word."

"You tellin' me you climbed outta the void for a chance at this sweet piece of ass?" Dean asked, blindsided.

"For want of a better term, yes."

Dean threw his head back and laughed.

"Well, for what it's worth, man, I'm totally worth it," said Dean, winking at Cas, who was glaring at him fondly, an expression Dean previously thought only Sam had ever mastered. "So the ladies tell me, anyway."

"Dean Winchester, you are incorrigible."

"And yet, here we are."

Castiel sighed, irritated.

"Unfortunately, I'm in love with you," he said blandly, and this time Dean _did_ run off the road.

"Shit!" he yelled as the Impala course-corrected courtesy of Castiel and nothing Dean was doing.

"And I very much hope that I can prove it to you by bringing you to a level of erotic ecstasy that you could not possibly imagine," Castiel finished as Dean sat in the driver's seat having a private freakout.

"Cas - you can't - !"

"I very much can," said Castiel firmly. "I'm an angel, after all. Now drive."

"Ten-four," said Dean, as if his entire mind hadn't just been blown. 

Which was strange, because he didn't really have a body here to betray him and yet -

But he was Dean, and as such, he couldn't resist.

"As if I'd give in to you that easily."

Castiel's gaze flicked to him and a slow, confident, smile-adjacent expression spread across his face.

"In fact," Castiel purred, dirty and filthy as if he were whispering in Dean's ear, "I'm in control here. Should I wish for you spread out before me like a feast, I would have it. Yes, you would _give in to me_ that easily, all the more so because I know you desire me, Dean."

And then, nonchalant as if he had been discussing the weather, he sat back and said:

"But I would much rather you come to me of your own volition. Preferably groveling. Begging for what you need, and knowing that only I can give it to you."

Cas sighed a little.

"Addicted," he said softly. "Wrapped around my little finger."

"Sure," squeaked Dean, mind going every which way at once. 

"I could penetrate you in ways you can't imagine," murmured Castiel. "I long to possess you, Dean. Own you. Mark you as mine, a promise I started with the brand of my handprint on our shoulder. Here, especially, in my true form beyond human ken, I could have you, pliant beneath me and writhing, aching for me and the pleasure only I can bestow upon you."

"Cas," whispered Dean, already in a state.

But Castiel was looking out the window again.

"Drive," he commanded. 

Dean did as he was told.


	15. Chapter 15

_None of this is real._

"Cas," Dean said. "You said you could manipulate the world around you, right?"

"Yes," Castiel said. "I thought what you saw would have made that perfectly clear."

"Yeah, yeah, snarky," said Dean. "What I mean is, why can't I? If this is supposed to be _my_ heaven, or whatever."

Dean looked down at the Impala's steering wheel.

"Turn into chocolate," he demanded.

Nothing happened. It remained the same in his hands.

"See? What'd I tell you?" said Dean with a lopsided grin. "I'm not the protagonist. You are."

Castiel stared at the steering wheel. 

Then he stared at Dean.

He stared out at the countryside around him.

His mouth dropped open.

"It doesn't matter," he said, a hint of excitement at the back of his voice.

"Come again?"

"Stop the car."

"Wow, Cas, change your mind much?"

" _Stop the car._ "

"Okay, okay. Sheesh."

They stepped out of the Impala into the fake-cheerful, sunny day.

"Do you remember how you told me once that you didn't want to be _some Stepford bitch in paradise?_ " asked Castiel, who seemed to be examining the air around him.

"Uh, yeah?" Dean said.

"Then the only way to win the game is not to play."

Castiel turned to him then, arresting him with his gaze, just like usual.

"I have long wished to anoint you, to bless you with frankincense and myrrh," he said softly. "To worship your body, to show you the secret places of your soul. To bring you ecstasy, and to bring you peace. To show you all those many points in history I once thought most beautiful until I met you."

He looked at Dean with an aching fondness.

"I won't waste my poetry on you here, Dean," he said seriously. "It needs to be somewhere real."

"Wha - " Dean began, and was startled to see Cas draw his angel blade...

and slice through the image in front of him as if it were made of paper.

The slick sound of the blade going through the image rang in his ears -

\- and suddenly, inexplicably, the sound shifted, as he was now watching Castiel pull an open pair of scissors against the ribbon of a balloon to make it curly.

Dean took a deep breath.

_Air. **Real** air, filled with the scent of pine and outdoors and cinnamon cookies._

"Cas," Dean ventured. "What just happened? What did you do?"

There were constellations in Castiel's eyes, bright points hanging in the firmament, just there.

_Had those always been there?_

"We ripped up the ending," said Castiel. "Leaving nothing but freedom and choice."

Dean was _really_ enjoying just breathing. Had all this delicious _reality,_ the fresh scent of wind, a slice of pie, that warm welcoming smell of an older house that was nevertheless a home,always been there too?

"You're gonna have to run that by me again there, bud."

"Hey, Dean, where'd you put the - _oof!_ "

Sam found himself with an entirely over-enthusiastic brother in his arms.

" _Sammy._ "

"Yeah, what's gotten into you?" asked Sam, casting a weird look at Castiel.

Dean backed off a little and grabbed Sam's face in both hands.

"I love you, little brother," said Dean firmly. "So much."

Sam's eyes just about bugged out of his head. Dean seemed to register it was making him uncomfortable and reluctantly let go.

"Uh, okay," said Sam. "Love you too, Dean. Thanks for letting us have Aidan's birthday party over here, by the way - our place is too small."

A bunch of screaming kids suddenly blazed through the kitchen, in one door and out the other.

"Anyway, I came in looking for the Doritos," said Sam.

Castiel handed him the bag with a serene smile.

"Thanks, Cas," said Sam, and made a hasty exit trailing after the kids, throwing a weird look over his shoulder at Dean as he went.

"What did you _do?_ " Dean asked.

Castiel shrugged.

"I realized that it was part of Chuck's game," he said. "You know. _Heaven's in trouble!_ there's xyz problem, and it's all sleight of hand. All of it. He wanted me distracted, so -"

"So he let you build your own little paradise to keep you distracted."

"Something like that."

"What about Jack?"

Castiel sighed, and looked very sad. Dean wanted to kiss the expression off his face.

"I'm not sure Jack was ever real," he said. "More distraction. Chuck knew that we'd be drawn into caretaker roles, and that would become paramount to all three of us."

"So you think that Jack and Chuck were the same all along?"

"Mmm. More like Jack was an extension of Chuck."

"I always thought there was something very creepy and brainwashy about how that all went down."

"And you were right. I should have known better."

"Hey, all of us fell for it, in the end."

"But the child of Lucifer -"

"Didn't necessarily have to be evil," said Dean. "Like you said. Look at Sam."

Castiel sighed.

"Even though I know he was probably a fabrication, I still miss him."

Dean drew Castiel into his arms.

"Me too, bud," said Dean. "Me too."

Dean sat with Castiel quietly for a while, helping him with the balloon ribbons.

When they were finally finished, and the work passed off to Sam, who was in the living room with a bunch of yelling kids and Eileen, the two of them were left alone.

"So they have no idea what happened?"

Castiel shook his head. 

"No, and I'd rather they never found out. Sam's future was...dire."

Dean's fond smile faded a little.

"Really?"

"Sam's happiness includes you, Dean, just as yours has always included Sam. He would never have gotten past your death, just as you would not have gotten past mine. Like it or not, we three are bound, in this life and the next."

"Speaking of which," said Dean, shifting the topic to something other than his own martyrdom that had backfired spectacularly, "what about all those, uh, promises, you made in heaven? You just gonna be some guy now?"

"Why? Are you disappointed?"

"Hell no, Cas," said Dean. "I'll take you in whatever vessel you come in, okay? I, uh."

He stared at the floor, blushing furiously.

"I'm kinda in love with you, all right?" he said angrily.

Laughing, Castiel tipped his chin up and caught his lips in a kiss.

"I'm kinda in love with you too, Dean Winchester," said Castiel against his lips. "And luckily for you, since I was the one choosing - I may have retained a few of my more angelic qualities."

For a moment, there was a shadow of great black wings against the wall.

"Just in case," Castiel finished.


	16. Chapter 16

"So, you uh, wanna fill me in on what happened there?"

Cas was standing in the sunlight, no trenchcoat, sleeves rolled up above the elbow, drinking a beer. 

Dean thought he'd never looked so beautiful.

"It's like you said," Castiel told him. "I'm the protagonist. I could effect change when you couldn't. Everything was the hamster wheel, I just...decided to step off. Step out of the story, so to speak."

"And...in this scenario, I'm fictional," said Dean. "And you...brought me with you?"

Castiel nodded.

"Something like that, yes," said Cas. "Not fictional. Just stuck."

"So when I asked if you were God -"

"Still not God, Dean. Just...someone with agency."

"So what does this choice, this _agency_ , mean for us now? For Sam?" asked Dean, tentatively approaching Castiel.

Cas smiled, beatific and brilliant.

"That's just it," he said. "I don't know. You don't know. We can't. No heaven, no hell."

"No supernatural?" Dean hazarded.

"Oh, no," said Cas. "Plenty of supernatural. I am supernatural myself, after all. And I made sure Rowena and the others are alive and well. But those choices I made - they're made now. The world, as it is, permanently."

"Like Bastian's wishes in _The Neverending Story,_ " said Dean. "You recreated the world."

"Something like that, I suppose."

"Wow, Cas," whistled Dean. "Way to make a guy feel inadequate."

"This way, we're all the protagonists," Castiel explained, taking Dean's hand. " _We_ choose the story of our futures. Just like we always wanted."

"So all this is real?" asked Dean. "We're alive, on earth, together?"

Castiel nodded.

"Yes," he agreed. "This is real life, we're alive, on the real Earth again. No more heaven, 'memorex' or otherwise."

He smiled.

"No prophecy, no predestiny, just the road ahead. Whatever we choose."

"So," said Dean, looking into Castiel's eyes.

"So," Castiel said. "What do you want to do next?"

Dean grinned, and kissed the daylights out of him.


	17. Chapter 17

Dean stepped back, and he breathed the air, felt the sun on his skin and inhaled the scent of earth and sky.

"So that's it, huh," he said. "All back together. This is the real world, we're alive, for good?"

"For good," Castiel assured him. "Everyone is alive on earth now, somewhere if not here. I was given one chance to do this and I wanted to do it right. So here we are - for better or worse."

"First night on Earth, Castiel," said Dean, grinning. "Any plans?"

Cas gave him a look that had once leveled cities. Dean stuttered a little and stepped back.

"I am an angel," he said. "And an angel, still. I have been a warrior since time out of mind."

"Yeah?" said Dean, unsure where this was going.

Castiel stepped into his personal space.

"And it is time I claimed the spoils of war," said Castiel.

"Oh," said Dean.

***

Cas had laid him out on something that reminded Dean of an altar.

"This is ancient Greece," Castiel informed him. "On the eve of the fall of Troy."

Castiel covered him with his body and pushed inside.

"Here, I claim thee."

***

"This is Egypt, and Cleopatra's rise," Castiel whispered into Dean's ear, as he set a leisurely pace. "These were my chambers, in those days."

The world filled with a golden light, and Dean blinked away tears he hadn't realized were falling.

"Here, I claim thee."

***

"This is the palace of Versailles, and my bedchamber," Castiel murmured, as he finally took Dean in hand, making him wail desperately, overwhelmed.

"Here, I claim thee."

***

Image after image spooled out, history and culture and past and present all in a tempest around Castiel.

Dean was gone, he was nothing, as the stars in the firmament surrounded them, and Castiel fell away from the familiar, and built and built and built until he was something endless that touched the sky, wing upon wing upon wing folding out into an endless fan across the stars.

Dean was staring up, and up, and he was sobbing, now, his entire being attempting to hold the knowledge of what was meant by _Castiel,_ and what it meant to be loved _by Castiel,_ and not succeeding.

Beyond his ken, beyond human ken, beyond _everything,_

and the creature that was _Castiel_ bending forward, leaning down, with a face Dean did not know but would recognize like _home_ ,

and whispered:

" _Be not afraid._ "

Dean came, with a cry that he knew would render him hoarse, anointed with frankincense and myrrh, but it was only one small part of the nirvana, the ecstasy, the feeling of utter _love_ meaning to break him bone from bone and rebuild him again, just as Castiel once had, so many years ago.

Dean fell unconscious then, unable to handle anything more than the height of this, with the single thought:

_Angels are watching over me._


	18. Chapter 18

And then, the world was back in order again, Dean standing stunned near the house they shared.

"Uh," he said. "Wow, Cas."

He wanted to joke, but there was nothing he could think of to say.

Castiel put his hand into Dean's.

"Let's go for a drive?" he suggested.

Dean blinked at him, and then sent him a brilliant smile, one that had dropped panties across the nation and, in one very memorable circumstance that Dean hoped to repeat for the rest of his life, caught the attention of an angel.

Screw being humble, he'd _earned_ this sense of pride.

"You read my mind," he said.

"Not this time," said Castiel. "But then, I don't really need to, do I?"

Dean laughed, and got into the driver's seat, cranking the music up as Castiel got in beside him.

He started the Impala, the low-throated growl reverbrating through his body, like coming home.

And there, in the car, he took the hand of the love of his life, and they drove on down the road together, angel and man.

Ethereal, supernatural, but only human, after all.

And really - in the end, ain't that America?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although its use in this ending is meant to be positive, _Ain't That America_ is from the song _Pink Houses_ by John Mellencamp, and is something of a protest song about the way things tend to turn out for people in the States.
> 
> In fact, many songs about America are exactly that: a repudiation of the things that have become normalized there. This seems as good a time as any to remind everyone that blind patriotism isn't patriotism at all.
> 
> We protest _because_ we care.


	19. Author's Note

I've found this one progressively more difficult to write, partly due to a comment on one of my other stories that really threw me for a loop. Please understand that much of what I write has come from actual lived experience and being insulting/high and mighty from a place you believe is virtuous risks hurting or upsetting people who are 'survivors' and have lived through these realities.

The other reason for this difficulty is due to the show having ended now, and the reality of that finally setting in.

One of the reasons for my own fascination, and the drifter/hobo fascination, with this show has to do with our feeling that we're not looked down on for the first time we can remember; that our lifestyles were not only admirable, but even cool. It's very clear to me that soon, we will once again occupy the edges of the world and lose the 'cool' factor that this show has inspired. We understand all too well that we will soon return to the old 'drifter-serial-killer' saw and similar distrust, misunderstanding of our lives and lifestyles. It's a melancholy feeling.

I hope, as always, that you are all safe and sound, being responsible during these times and thinking always of others. Drifters work the background machinery of the nation and we have lost the one thing that matters most to us: the freedom to move. But we are willing to lose it in order to protect other people. Please do the same - that's the contract between the drifter and those who stand still.

Thank you for reading. <3


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